John Harbaugh confirms suspicion about rookie and important positional battle for the Giants right ahead of roster cuts
Undrafted rookie Dominic Zvada has won the kicking battle and will be New York’s starter in the 2026 season.
The New York Giants have their kicker for the 2026 season, and he’s a 22-year-old undrafted rookie. After the Giants’ 23-6 win over the New York Jets in their preseason finale, head coach John Harbaugh confirmed that rookie kicker Dominic Zvada has won the positional battle over veteran Ben Sauls throughout training camp.
“He’ll win the job, he will be the kicker,” Harbaugh said.
The announcement ends a competition that stretched across the entire preseason, with both kickers performing well. Zvada, however, gave the coaching staff enough evidence to commit to the younger option heading into the regular season.
Zvada’s preseason performance
Zvada converted all four of his extra points and went 5-for-5 on field goals during the preseason. His best showing came in the finale against the Jets, where he connected from 23, 53, and 46 yards. That 53-yard conversion, in particular, demonstrated the leg strength that made him a first-team All-American at Michigan in 2024.
Sauls was consistent in his own right, converting one extra point and hitting all three of his field goal attempts during the preseason. But consistency alone wasn’t enough to hold off a younger competitor with more upside.
Move makes sense from a long-term perspective
The decision comes down to ceiling and contract value. At 22 years old, Zvada is three years younger than Sauls and profiles as a potential long-term solution at the position. Zvada also carries a favorable contract situation, since the Giants have him under an undrafted rookie deal for three years, giving them cost certainty at the position. Sauls, by contrast, has already bounced between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Atlanta Falcons before spending the final stretch of the 2025 regular season with the Giants. His experience didn’t outweigh what Zvada showed on the field.
The next question for the Giants front office is whether they can extract any value from Sauls before the roster cut deadline. New York could look to swing a late-round draft pick in a trade, finding a kicker-needy team willing to take on a proven veteran. If no trade materializes, the Giants will have to waive him ahead of the 53-man roster cutdown.
